Water Bottle Showdown: Klean Kanteen Vs. Nalgene

Durability
Nalgenes are known for their durability. An empty Nalgene can survive anything. But fill one with water, and drop it four feet onto rock, and you have an excellent chance of cracking it open. I’ve seen three broken this way. (And it turns out that you can’t send in a broken Nalgene for a free replacement.) All of them were the new formula plastic, which seems to be much brittler than its BPA-containing counterpart.

Klean Kanteens will dent rather easily. But beyond that, they’re very difficult to break. The plastic tops will crack or break just as easily as any other type of plastic, but they are easily replaceable. One tester dropped his bottle one hundred feet, replaced the shattered top, and continued using it. It seems that the only way to render the Klean Kanteen unusable would be to bend the neck of the bottle in a way that would make it impossible to get a top in there.

Funkness
Nalgene bottles are not supposed to hold tastes or odors, but our testers discovered that after keeping Gatorade or coffee in a Nalgene overnight, the bottle would hold the taste for several days. Testers also discovered that, if not used regularly, the bottle would sour, and take on a slight putrid taste and scent, even after cleaning. The same would happen to the Klean Kanteen, but over a period of months rather than days.

Lid functionality
The Klean Kanteen comes with a wide variety of lids, from carabiner-compatible loops to “Sport” sippy-tops. The Nalgene comes with just the one, a loop-top. Because the loop is offset from the bottle itself, it’s much more comfortable to carry clipped to a harness or backpack than the Klean Kanteen. That being said, clipping it directly to anything, particularly a climbing harness, is a bad idea with potentially disastrous consequences, because the connection from the lid to the loop is unreliable. The Klean Kanteen top is very well designed, but does not seem to last as long as the Nalgene’s. The plastic protrusions tend to crack and shatter well before the bottle itself comes to the end of its life.

Material advantages
One of the most unique advantages of the Klean Kanteen is its ability to be used as a cooking vessel. In a pinch, it can be used to cook or boil water. However, the heat capacity of stainless steel comes with drawbacks. On cold nights, you can fill a Nalgene with hot water and keep it in your sleeping bag, but the Klean Kanteen will get too hot to do so comfortably or safely. The plastic does a much better job of insulating liquids.

Compatibility
Because the Nalgene was the dominant water bottle for so long, a number of products were developed to be compatible with the mouth size. Most water filters are sized to fit Nalgene lids, and companies like Backcountry Access and Guyot Designs design products specifically for the Nalgene. The wide-mouth size has become standard. In response, Klean Kanteen began producing wide-mouth sized bottles, but we found them to be less reliable than their original design. The new bottles are prone to leaking because of a thin, poorly attached o-ring that is very easy to dislodge.

Cupholder
This will not matter the vast majority of the time, but a Nalgene will not fit in a standard sized cupholder. Neither will the larger Klean Kanteen sizes, but the 27 oz size and below will.

The Bottom Line
Choosing our favorite was very difficult. By overall score on testing criteria, the Nalgene just barely won our Editor's Choice Award. But leaving it at that does a disservice to the individual strengths and weaknesses of each bottle. The Klean Kanteen is better than the Nalgene is some applications. Read below and ask yourself what activity you will use your water bottle for.

What is the best bottle for specific applications?:
Day Hiking: Either.
Backpacking: Nalgene. The Klean Kanteen is just too heavy to justify, and the narrow top version is not compatible with water filters.
Car Camping/Daily use: Klean Kanteen. When weight is not a concern, we prefer the Klean Kanteen.
Ski touring/Winter Camping: Nalgene. Who doesn’t love a warm Nalgene to cuddle through a cold night? That alone is a selling point-not to mention that most insulating sleeves are designed for Nalgenes.
Climbing: Nalgene. Again, weight is an issue. Just don’t clip it to your harness.
Canoe Tripping: Klean Kanteen. I used and broke a number of Nalgenes over several years of canoe tripping before switching to the Klean Kanteen. The bottles weathered the summer well, with significant denting but completely functional. The Klean Kanteen’s durability serves it well for the rigors of multi-month canoe tripping.